Broadcom 57810 cards - latest drivers?

[MountainBofh]

Recently I was gifted a bunch of these cards, and Broadcom's website for finding drivers is a f'ing nightmare, especially for older cards.

Anyone have links to the newest firmware and Windows drivers for these cards?

 

[finno]

Dell might be helpful

Dell firmware DUP for Qlogic BCM57xxx series adapters | Driver Details | Dell US

QLogic 578xx Adapters 64bit Windows drivers. | Driver Details | Dell US

 

[Stephan]

If you have and reconfigure a BCM57810S card to QLogic QLE3442-CU-CK 14e4:168e 14e4:5006, you can use their firmware and drivers: Public Driver Downloads | QLogic Fibre Channel HBAs and FastLinQ Ethernet adapters and controllers - Marvell -> Category Intelligent Ethernet Adapters / Platform Windows / Part Number QLE34XX

Latest is WindowsDriverInstaller_34xx_84xx_20.50.3.6.zip

---
9=5006 Set PCI subsystem device to 5006
35=70 1G, 2.5G, and 10G = 0x10 | 0x20 | 0x40
56/59=6 Defaults the link speed to 2.5G

ediag.exe -b10eng

dev 1
nvm cfg 9=5006
nvm cfg 35=70
nvm cfg 36=70
(nvm cfg 56=6)
(nvm cfg 59=6)
save
dev 2
...
exit
---
Firmware Upgrade on Linux

./lnxfwnx2 -all upgrade -f -mbi ql_mbi_7.16.01.bin
---

Why the nvm cfg in brackets, card is popular among connoisseurs to run SFP+ GPON modules in 2.5G mode, so a slighly overprovisioned German 1 Gbps fiber link is not limited to 940 Mbps because of ethernet overhead and 1 Gbps ethernet itself. Ediag from B57BCMCD_T7.12b.4.1.zip. Runs on FreeDOS. Suitable module for Deutsche Telekom Germany is Nokia/Alcatel-Lucent G-010S-P with APC connection, no pin 6 problems, no soldering works out of the box.

 

[MountainBofh]

If I understand your post correctly, there's a way to crossflash the BCM57810 to a Qlogic firmware?

 

[TRACKER]

i guess there is

 

[Stephan]

Yes, you change the PCI subsystem device number for dev 1 and dev 2 (the two ports on the card) and then flash firmware from QLogic after a power cycle. Make sure the card looks about the same, i.e. RJ45 or SFP+ the same, no fan or fan the same. Make a note of all actions and previous firmware releases so you can backtrack if something doesn't work out. There are options to configure a fan to present, but that would be pushing things a little. Never tried it. Once on the QLogic train you can just update what they put out, but I think there won't be alot of updates anymore for this old card and 10 Gbps is also very old by now.

Attaching a patch for Linux kernel 6.6 to activate 2.5 Gbps. I think I should submit this to Linus. It is not mine, gobbled it up on some forum.

If you get an optical beam splitter you can put an ONT module I mentioned in the card, another one on a VLAN in say a Mellanox SX6012, route the VLAN to a firewall VM which gets that card passed through, and write a small watchdog that polls the card and EEPROM and PPPoE link to see if everything is healthy. If something is dead like ONT died or card, the watchdog switches over to other ONT via the VLAN. Which sits in a 40/56 Gbps port via an adapter and only at 1 Gbps ethernet line rate, not 2.5 Gbps. So optical fiber failover... not many people have that.

Edit: https://www.supermicro.com/wdl/driver/Broadcom/B57BCMCD_T7.12b.4.1/dos.zip has the ediag.exe you'd need. Don't like UEFI version and never tried a Linux version that also supposedly exists.

Edit 2: Somebody on Github used QEMU to pass through the card to boot DOS in a VM. Don't use that, doesn't work for second port and I have doubts about correct edits for first port because of the passthrough.

 

[prdtabim]

Yes, you change the PCI subsystem device number for dev 1 and dev 2 (the two ports on the card) and then flash firmware from QLogic after a power cycle. Make sure the card looks about the same, i.e. RJ45 or SFP+ the same, no fan or fan the same. Make a note of all actions and previous firmware releases so you can backtrack if something doesn't work out. There are options to configure a fan to present, but that would be pushing things a little. Never tried it. Once on the QLogic train you can just update what they put out, but I think there won't be alot of updates anymore for this old card and 10 Gbps is also very old by now.

Attaching a patch for Linux kernel 6.6 to activate 2.5 Gbps. I think I should submit this to Linus. It is not mine, gobbled it up on some forum.

If you get an optical beam splitter you can put an ONT module I mentioned in the card, another one on a VLAN in say a Mellanox SX6012, route the VLAN to a firewall VM which gets that card passed through, and write a small watchdog that polls the card and EEPROM and PPPoE link to see if everything is healthy. If something is dead like ONT died or card, the watchdog switches over to other ONT via the VLAN. Which sits in a 40/56 Gbps port via an adapter and only at 1 Gbps ethernet line rate, not 2.5 Gbps. So optical fiber failover... not many people have that.

Edit: https://www.supermicro.com/wdl/driver/Broadcom/B57BCMCD_T7.12b.4.1/dos.zip has the ediag.exe you'd need. Don't like UEFI version and never tried a Linux version that also supposedly exists.

Edit 2: Somebody on Github used QEMU to pass through the card to boot DOS in a VM. Don't use that, doesn't work for second port and I have doubts about correct edits for first port because of the passthrough.

Great explain ...
2 questions:
1 - BCM57810 is gen2 ( I never see any gen3 57810 ) in 10Gbase-t or sfp+
QLE3442 is gen3
Will thuis crossflash activate gen3 in BCM57810 ?

2 - I already used BCM578109 and QLE3442 ( sfp+ ) with great results in 2.5Gb/s with a DFP-34X-3C3 xpon . Using a crossflashed card with 10Gbase-t interface, will it enable 2.5Gb/s compatible 802.2bz connection in the ports ?
This GPON adapter is 2.5Gb/s sfp ( not sfp+ ).

 

[Stephan]

1 - Looks like they made a new chip for PCIe 3.0 but those seem limited to cards which carry the QLogic brand in silkscreen on front and explicit "PCIe 3.0" in silkscreen on back. Highly doubt the hardware function blocks are magically upgraded from 2.0 to 3.0. It just so happens that the firmware works for the entire 578xx series. But with PCIe 2.0 x8 there is no bottleneck.

2 - 10G-BaseT cards have a second chip. Feature upgrade is unlikely as well but I don't know, don't have such a card. Was surprised that Intel X550 supports it so what do I know. Maybe somebody else can and will answer. I don't run anything over 1 Gbps speeds over copper because of power draw.

Card needs a tiny bit of cooling, for anybody trying stuff out.

 

[blunden]

2 - 10G-BaseT cards have a second chip. Feature upgrade is unlikely as well but I don't know, don't have such a card. Was surprised that Intel X550 supports it so what do I know. Maybe somebody else can and will answer. I don't run anything over 1 Gbps speeds over copper because of power draw.

I'm guessing that it depends on how much of the logic is happening in the updatable firmware code and how much is built into the chip itself. My understanding is that the new NBASE-T speeds are just the 10GBASE-T signaling but at lower frequencies (1/2 and 1/4 respectively).

If the frequency is controllable from firmware and the negotiation code resides there too, I suppose adding support would technically be possible with a firmware update.

Whether it's something that the manufacturer would ever consider doing is another matter. I'm also not sure how other chips in the communication path would behave.

 

[Stephan]

Datasheet like here https://www.eurostor.com/wp-content/uploads/datenblaetter/DataSheet_3400Series_IEA.pdf says 100/1000/10000 only.

For 2.5/5 really get an X550. Asus XG-C100C with AQC107 chip is only stable with various features disabled through ethtool. Better yet, get a CX3 that can do 40/56 Gbps with cheapish fiber or DAC cabling.

These 57810 are really only good enough if a) they were free or b) you want an SFP+ card that can do 2.5 Gbps for ONT fiber modules.